


A Laying Of Hands

by TheLastStarkInWinterfell



Category: Good Omens (Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Hitchhiker, M/M, Musician Crowley, Religion, Religious Imagery, Salesman Aziraphale, Southern Gothic AU, Strangers to Lovers, kinda at least - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-05-19 11:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19355818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastStarkInWinterfell/pseuds/TheLastStarkInWinterfell
Summary: When hard on his luck Bible salesman A.Z. Fell hits a dog on a Mississippi background, he's shaken up and could use some company.  What's the harm in inviting that handsome musician to ride along with him?  Surely that disquieting feeling will fade once he gets this dog to a vet?  Yes, surely.





	1. The Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Have you also watched the popular Amazon Prime miniseries Good Omens and wondered 'What if this was set in the American South, both characters were humans, and there were elements of magical realism combined with strong Southern Baptist imagery?' No? Well have you ever wondered 'What if Crowley and Aziraphale kissed?' Yes? Then you'll probably like this. Please enjoy my half-shod William Gay impression.

Fell was aching hot. The car had an air conditioning unit, but it had started sputtering back in Jackson, and the last two weeks of unpaved Alabama backroads had just about done the beast in. It was just as likely to puff out a sulphuric cloud of hot fuming smoke as to actually cool him down. He’d tried to catch a bit of a breeze, but the hot dry summer had coated the roadways in a fine pale dust that quickly settled on him the moment he rolled his window down for a gasp of fresh air. His eyelashes and hair were sprinkled with bone-white residue, as if some great moth had brushed against him on one of the lampless roads down in the swampland. You could have mistaken him for a pillar of salt if it weren’t for the streaks of flushed skin that sweat had tracked across his face.

If he didn’t stop soon he was like to collapse over the steering wheel. In the backseat behind him, his books rumbled angrily in their boxes as he bounced over more potholes, and with a quiet thump the glass soda bottle in the seat beside him tipped over and poured the last few sips of Coca Cola onto the already stained floor of the Lincoln Continental.

“Oh sugar,” Fell hissed as he groped in his pocket for his handkerchief, trying to keep the wheel steady. He bent over, praying the car would stay on its path, and tried to soak up some of the soda before it soaked in and started attracting bugs. Last thing he needed right now was ants crawling up his trouser leg while he was trying to steer.

Figuring he’d gotten as much off the floor as he was gonna get, he gave a half-hearted swipe of the seat and sat up just before he hit the dog.

He just saw a flash of wide brown eyes and pale teeth before it slammed into his grille with a soul wrenching yelp and rolled limply beneath the undercarriage. He slammed the brakes with a shout, throwing up dust on all sides, and was out the door before he had come to a full stop.

“Tell me you ain’t gone under the wheels,” he gasped, and knelt, sputtering in the dust, trying to see where it had come to rest. There was whimper from between the back wheels, and he groped blindly along the road until his fingertips brushed fur, and he tried to pull the dog into his lap as gently as possible.

It was gasping and crying, and he ran his finger between its ears til it calmed down and rested a dusty muzzle on his knee, breathing ragged and pulse hummingbird fast against his knee. Two of its legs were twisted unnaturally, and when he could see splotches along its ribs where blood and dust had matted into unholy mud in its dirty fur.  
“You’re gonna be okay honey,” he murmured to the creature, and it huffed as if in agreement and looked at him with pain soaked eyes.

Fell felt dizzy and nauseous. Blood churned his stomach at the best of times, and the way the dog draped as if boneless over his legs reminded him of walking back from the butcher shop with his mother- the limp sides of pork in their brown paper wrapping growing warm against his chest.

“You stay here,” he said, as if the dog could go anywhere even if it wanted to, and stood on trembling knees. It seemed smaller now than when it had loomed in the road, as if had already died and begun to shrink in the heat. Fell covered his mouth and staggered back a few steps before gaining his footing once again and padding towards the car.

“I ain’t going anywhere,” he said in response to a half-throated whimper that was more of a gasp than a cry, and he shouldered his back door open. “I’m just-” he doubled over, dry-heaving and coughing in the doorframe, and when he caught his breath again, there was a gritty film of dust over his tongue. He pawed through his backseat, knocking aside old magazines, cans of soup and beans, and the Bibles, always the Bibles with their pages still factory stinking, until he finally found what he'd been searching for.

"Here," he said to the dog as it looked at him balefully. "I knew it's always worth keeping a towel around even when you don't use it anymore."

He gently wrapped the dog in the sun-bleached, stiff towel. It didn't whimper now, though he was sure the movement must be agony.

"What a good brave dog you are," he told it quietly, his breath steadying once more. "Some soul's gonna be lucky to have you."

He set the dog as lightly as he could on the passenger seat behind him. It sniffed the seat as much as it could with its impeded movement, and Fell rubbed one of its ears between two of his fingers, bidding it to calm down and get back to sleep. It blinked the dust from its eyelashes and only when it had lowered its head back to the seat did Fell shut the door and start driving.

"Next diner or gas station I see we're gonna stop," he told the dog. "Stop and ask if there's a veterinarian or some such I can bring you to, that good?" The dog didn't answer.

Fell tried to focus on the road, and not think about the way the dog's legs bent, or how blood had already started to soak through the towel in the short distance between road and car.

"Why didn't I watch the road?" he said to himself. "Stupid, stupid. Oughta learn to focus, Mr. Fell." And with one final sigh he sank back into the silence of the road, only broken up by the quiet rattling breath of the dog on the seat next to him.

The first place he could stop turned out to be a bar. It was a little ramshackle place, almost hidden by the trees, but with more cars out front that Fell would have expected for a Sunday afternoon. He looked down at his blood and dust covered clothing, and hoped that this wouldn't be a respectable sort of place. He looked at where the dog lay, somewhere between sleep and painful catatonia, and decided it wouldn't help matters if he brought it in with him.

Mostly for the sake of dog, but also thinking wryly of the smell of his car's interior, Fell gathered up the dog as gingerly as he could and deposited him gently on a patch of grass in the shade cast by the car. It stretched out a pale pink tongue and ran it raspy over Fell's thumb as he arranged the towel around its head.

"That's very sweet of you, but you just gonna end up eating dust if you keep that up." Fell chided with a smile, grabbed one of his chipped mugs from the backseat, and headed inside.

Inside, the bar smelled of worn leather and sunburnt pine wood. It wasn't half as unpleasant as Fell had been expecting, and the humming coolness under the tar roof was a welcome relief from the road. The barkeeper, a large man with Navy tattoos just visible where his wrists peeked out from beneath his sleeves, started when he saw Fell.

"You just get in an accident or something?" he asked.

"Might as well have," Fell said tiredly. "You got a sink I could use?"

The barkeeper gestured toward a door in the back of the room, just pass the jukebox, and Fell dragged himself past the stools and their weathered occupants and into the bathroom. His reflection in the sink was even worse than in his rearview mirror. He was covered in dust, and one smear of rusty blood above his eyebrow where he'd wiped his brow. His grey eyes seemed more watery than usual, stark against the dry dust covering the rest of him. It wasn’t until he’d splashed water over his face with a quiet sigh of relief from the heat that he started to recognize himself.

He cleaned up the best he could, rinsing his mouth and brushing the worst of the dust out of his hair, and debated for a moment the odds of anyone else coming in before he stripped off his shirt, relishing the feeling as sweat-soaked fabric peeled away from the back of his neck. He needed to rinse out the blood, and a wet shirt would be welcome in this sticky heat.

Continuing his luck for the day, it was in his undershirt, rubbing at the last of the particularly persistent bloodstains, that the door opened.

"Do you-" Fell started to say, and then found his words stilled by what he was suddenly sure was the most striking form he'd ever seen.

He wore all black, from well-tailored trousers to wide lapeled shirt. No jacket. A pair of gleaming mirrored sunglasses perched on a sharp nose and topped with a carefully combed mass of autumn red hair. Despite himself, Fell couldn't help but let his eyes sweep over the stranger, from his leather shoes up to the arched thin eyebrows. He was a bit rangy, a bit overdressed, and there was something else about him that Fell couldn't put his finger on- a familiar song played just a little off rhythm, disquieting but not alarming. And yet- Fell didn't want to go so far as to call him handsome, though that was mainly because he knew better than to call strangers in bathrooms handsome rather than any particular commentary about his actual features- he was alluring somehow.

"Didn't know we were having another dust bowl," the stranger said, and Fell tried to shake off whatever stupor he was in.

"You must not have been outside lately then," he said defensively. "More dust clouds out there than an Arizona rodeo," He started to pull his shirt back on, the wet fabric sticking to his arms.

"Oh I have, I just know to keep my windows rolled up," the stranger said with a laugh, and Fell made a point of focusing on the task of redoing his buttons as the man relieved himself.

Foolishly, Fell had figured their conversation wouldn't extend past those barbs, but as he filled his mug with warm tinny water, the stranger butted in again.

"Never seen anyone come to a bar for the tap water before," he said.

"It's for the dog." Fell responded curtly, and left the bathroom.

Back in the barroom, Fell ignored the bartenders raised eyebrows and ordered three bottles of coke, and inquired after a veterinarian. As he counted out his folded bills and stray nickels, he heard the bathroom door open and close, and the click of well-made shoes tapping across the floorboards, but kept his eyes trained on his hands as he paid, gathered up his items, and left.

Outside, the dog wriggled and whimpered to see him, giving a few half-hearted swats of its tail. Fell stilled it with a calm hand, and pulled it back into his lap so that it could drink without straining its neck.

"I'm afraid there's no vets for the next two towns, but don't worry, we'll get you there," he told it reassuringly. "You just gonna have to hold on a day or two."

A shadow fell across the dust-streaked side of Fell's car, and he squinted up to see the stranger from the bathroom, now with a black guitar case over his shoulder.

"I don't know about that dog's chances," he said. Fell wrinkled his nose.

"What do you know about dogs?" he asked.

"I know that one's not doing well," he said, and Fell gathered up the dog protectively in his arms, as if the man was going to try to grab it from him. The man just smiled. "He might not hold up two days, but he's got a better chance if two people are driving. Less stops."

Fell stared at him, considering.

"Why should you care about my dog?"

He'd carried hitch-hikers along a few times- it was nice to have company on the road, provided it was polite.

"Who doesn't like dogs?" the man said, and stretched his hand out towards where the dog was swaddled in Fell's arms. "'Sides, we got a common goal to get a few towns over as soon as we can, dog or no."

There was nothing immediately warning Fell away. He didn't stink, and he wasn't raving or visibly drunk. They were a good way from the last penitentiary. And, well, he wasn't bad looking, which was always nice in a ride along.

But a voice was yelling deep within him, some small moral warning howling from deep within his conscience just loud enough to echo through his mind and give him pause. Something, he didn't know what, just didn't feel right. 

Then the dog falteringly stretched out its tongue and gave the stranger's fingertips a welcoming lick, and Fell's mind was made up.

"Fine, get in." He said, and the man smiled. Fell cleared a spot on the floor of the backseat for the dog- it seemed cooler anyway, and climbed into the driver's seat prepared for a long drive.

"I'm Fell, by the way." He said to the stranger, and dared a quick glance. He was smiling languidly, almost as if bemused. "A. Z. Fell. I'm a salesman." And though it felt uncomfortably formal, he reached out a hand for a handshake.

The stranger's smile widened until it reached his whole face, or at least Fell assumed it did without seeing his eyes behind the glasses, and clasped Fell's outstretched hand with both hands, completely encircling Fell's fingers in a warm calloused grip. At his touch, Fell felt his stomach go suddenly warm, as if he'd just drunk a glass of hot tea in winter, and a smile involuntarily quirked the edge of his mouth.

"I'm Lee," the stranger said. "I'm a musician."

And Fell and Lee clanked off down the Alabama backroads, trailing dust behind them in a pale wake.

Even though it hadn’t worked in days, now the air conditioning hummed happily as they jolted along, and if he hadn’t just gone down it Fell would have found it hard to believe he was on the same dusty humid path as earlier. As he drove, he cast the occasional glance at Lee, pretending it was a matter of distrust, rather than curiosity. Never did a soul any good to look curious about strangers.

Lee, for his part, mostly seemed to be looking ahead at the road, though it was hard to tell through his glasses. His long slender fingers seemed to never stop moving, tracing along the seams of his guitar case, tapping out rhythms for a few bars before trailing off to find already worn spots on the straps.

“You mind if I turn on the radio?” He asked suddenly, already reaching for the knob.

“Oh, that don’t-” but before Fell could finish his sentence Lee was already spinning for a distant country station amongst the static. Fell tried to hide his confusion.

“That thing ain’t worked in months.” Lee just shrugged his answer.

“Car’s get along with me.”

“I could use some of whatever you got,” Fell said. “Travellin’ around so much and all.”

“Oh you don’t want it.” Lee said, and without elaborating he slumped in the seat, stretching his legs languidly in front of him to rest his heels on the dashboard. Something about the calm reptilian grace of the movement gave Fell a funny taste in his throat that he swallowed down dryly.

“If, uh, if you say so, I suppose,” he stammered, and turned his attention to the road in front of him.

There was another advantage to picking up Lee, he thought. Normally after hitting something like that he’d be so jittery he’d barely be able to drive. He’d be grit-toothed and slavering, imagining every little pothole as a rabbit, a kitten, a child.

Being a bit flustered by a stranger was a nice change. Very nice, actually.

Lee leaned back in his seat, craning his neck to look at where the dog lay curled sadly on the floor.

“How’s it lookin’?” Fell asked nervously, hoping it hadn’t expired on his upholstery.

“‘Bout the same. Not panting so much, but that might just be the temperature.” Lee said, and pointed at the dog with one patronizing finger, his reflection in Fell’s mirror looking for all the world like a school teacher scolding a favorite pupil.

“Don’t you dare croak back there, y’hear? Diggin’ a graves a lot of hard neither me or Mr. Fell have time for, specially with the weather like this. Got that, you little-” he stopped suddenly, and looked at Fell, reading his features. “Well, bitch might just be a statement of fact.”

Fell chuckled despite himself.

“Don’t chew it out anyhow. Ain’t you ever heard of positive reinforcements?”

“Spare the rod, spoil the child,” Lee murmured, but relented anyway. “You said you’re a salesman. What do you sell?”

“Bibles.”

“Oh you’re kidding,” Lee said, so quietly that Fell wasn’t certain whether or not he was speaking to him, but before he could wonder what he meant, he was distracted by the way the tendons in Lee’s neck stood out as he twisted to grope for something in the backseat.

Lee returned clutching one of the Bibles, and flipped through the pages one handed, an unreadable expression on his face.

“A real Bible salesman. How 1930s.”

“I don’t go door to door,” Fell said, defensive. “It’s all mail order. Mostly old folks that can’t get to a bookstore.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure.” Lee was paging through the book absently, as if searching for a favorite passage. Fell knew it wasn’t the order method that Lee found amusing about his job, but something about Lee made him want to justify things. Made him want to find reasons.

“You wanna know the worst part?” Fell asked, and pressed his lips against his teeth for a heartbeat when he sensed Lee’s captivated attention. “Those Bibles are misprinted.”

“How so?”

“They say- where they should say Lamb they say Lame. It’s misspelled.”

“Comes across like they’re calling the Lamb of God-”

“Lame, yeah.” Fell was getting a kick out of how amused Lee seemed, and couldn’t help but steal a look over to him, thrilling at the sight of his flicking through the pages, ostensibly trying to find a reference to the Lame of God.

“My favorite one is Revelations 7:14.” Fell said, just to see Lee follow his suggestion, and smiled when Lee turned to it.

“We have washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lame.” he recited dutifully, in the steady rhythmic intonation of one used to Bible verse. “Changes the meaning somewhat, don’t it?”

“Makes it all very genocidal.” Fell said.

“Guess it don’t actually change it too much, then, for Revelations.”

Fell was taken aback for a moment, surprised he’d never thought of it that way.

“Seems like you know this pretty well, quoting away like that,” Lee said, and went to toss the Bible into the backseat, only to immediately catch it when it threatened to topple off the mountain of stuff and onto the sleeping dog. He put it contritely back into his lap. As if to make up for a moment of incoordination, his next comment was almost bitter. “Makes you come across like some kinda preacher.”

Fell blinked, not sure how to respond. Something had slithered into the air, something that tensed the corners of Lee’s mouth and stilled his roving fingers.

“I ain’t a preacher.”

“You dress like one,” And the tension was broken again when Lee laughed. “All that white linen.”

“Hey now,” Fell was laughing as well, straightening his back and grimacing like some demented lawyer in a shambling courthouse. “White linen’s sensible in the heat, unlike that black mess you’re wearing. Makes you look like a Widow Witch, you know?”

“And you look like a tent preacher.”

Fell’s smile slipped.

“My father was a tent preacher.” he said softly.

“That explains where you got the clothes, I guess.” Lee was looking at something distant out the window, a fingernail scraping down the side of his guitar case, a faint expression of apprehension on his lips.

“I guess.”

“What denomination?”

“Southern Baptist.”

“You ever do snake handling?” Lee asked, and the ease at which he said it made Fell’s heart and head race. He wondered if that was a euphemism, but it seemed very forward for one, and anyway Lee was still half distracted out the window. Fell’s voice was a little raspy with confusion when he answered.

“No? My father always sad that, uh, the good lord put snakes on the ground for good reason and there’s no sense picking them up again.” He didn’t dare look at Lee’s reaction, but just in case it had been a euphemism he added. “I always preferred the laying of hands, myself.”

“The laying of hands…” Lee said, sounding absent. Then with a start he turned back to Fell, looking excited. “Maybe that’s what your dog needs!”

Before Fell could be sure of a reply the sky cracked open with a Heavenly thud of war drum thunder, and the deluge began.


	2. The Rainstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rainstorm, some flirting and somehow Dusty Springfield fits her way into all of this

Most days this humid an afternoon thunderstorm was practically expected. As fat droplets of rain began to splatter themselves across the road, the plants on either side of the road seemed to shimmy themselves towards the heavens with a gasp of relief, trembling leaves dripping, at last cleansed of the day’s grime. The clouds of dust beneath the wheels quieted and at last settled back into its roadbed, as if the world was already preparing for the darkness that waited a few hours behind the horizon. Whatever not of calm had just thrummed through the world, Fell seemed to feel it too, and his hands loosened on the wheel and he sank a few nearly imperceptible centimeters back in his seat. Lee caught himself staring at the way movements flitted across Fell’s lips, hoping for a smile to pull them back and crinkle his eyes, or at the very least for the tip of his tongue to taste the air. He busied himself with a run on his jacket, and was grateful for his sunglasses.

“This is a nice change of pace,” Fell said, satisfied.

“Sure is.”

The sound of water cascading onto the roof of the car was loud enough that conversation was difficult, and they drove in silence save the rain. Sometimes Lee couldn’t resist the urge to glance over at Fell, studying the profile of his upturned nose or his sleepy eyes, but he was always sure to look away as quickly as he’d looked at him, pretending he’d just been checking the horizon for a break in the clouds. Their gazes never met, but Lee was pretty sure he could feel eyes on him sometimes, and made a point to be looking straight ahead when he did.

He wasn’t sure what compelled him so with this man. He was easy on the eyes, sure, but not in the kind of way most folks wrote songs about. And Lee wasn’t the type to take big risks for a lay, anyhow. No, there was something different about this one, preacher man’s son or no.

Fell cleared his throat, giving Lee the excuse to look at him head on, and he saw his brow was furrowed.

“Does it seem like it’s coming down a little… a little hard to you?” He asked, craning his neck towards the windshield. Lee tore himself away from thoughts of fingertips and collarbones long enough to actually look at the road, and realized quickly what Fell meant.

A few days without rain, wheels and feet throwing up dry dust had left the road loose, and as the rain fell it churned and bubbled into a thick and stewing mud. Lee could already feel the tires loosening their grip on the earth, sliding a little further than they should with each tap of the gas.

“That ain’t good.” He said, and Fell shook his head in agreement.

“Maybe she’ll hold up ’til we hit asphalt,” Fell said, and as if the world had heard and grown obstinate, a small rise, just a few feet, something Lee could have cleared in just a step, loomed before them in the road, and just as expected, the car squelched wetly and refused to move.

“No, no, dammit.” Fell whispered, and slammed the gas. The tires spun, hissing and didn’t move.

“Just gonna get it more stuck,” Lee warned, and Fell sat back hard and frustrated.

“Fuck.” He said, face so scrunched he looked like he might be about to bawl. Lee was swept with an urge to do whatever would make him smile again, but he didn’t know what exactly that was.

“Just gonna have to wait til it lets up and dries out,” Lee said quietly. Fell tapped the steering wheel, thinking.

“I got no problem spending a night here, guessing you don’t either, but that waiting might just kill the dog.” Fell said quietly, and Lee’s stomach dropped. He remembered a glimpse of glass and wood he’d seen a few minutes back, while concentrating on looking out the window instead of at Fell.

“There’s a house a bit back.” He said. “Maybe they got a- a tow truck. Or at the very least it’ll be drier than here.” He glanced at the spot above Fell’s head where a bit of water was already starting to leak in between the casing of the door. Fell’s mouth was wan, but he nodded.

“Beats just sittin’ on our hands.”

Fell had to contort himself to reach into the backseat, gathering up this and that from the mess. Lee adjusted the straps on the guitar case and braced himself for the warm rain.

“Could you get the dog?” Fell asked from the backseat. “I’m gonna have my hands full.”

“Uh, sure,” Lee said, even though animals usually hated him. The dog seemed docile though. Fell returned from the backseat holding a trembling, bloodstained towel, and lowered it gently into Lee’s outstretched arms. His hands, fingers warmer that they had any right to be in the air conditioning, brushed against Lee’s chest, and Lee steadied his breath, hoping Fell wouldn’t feel his rioting heartbeat. His touch was light and gentle, almost imperceptible if not for the heat they left.

A furry brown face popped its nose out of the towel, and Fell leaned over it, humming and shushing. Wounded animals, Lee knew, are the ones most likely to bite. They have nothing to lose. But Fell didn’t seem to care, letting his face and fingers slip easily within range with the calm confidence of someone who has complete faith that the world would carry them home safely.

Lee could feel his sunglasses slipping down his nose and jerked them up with a sniff.

“Let’s be off then.” He said, and he and Fell raced into the rain.

The water was warm as it trickled through Lee’s hair, down the back of his collar, cleaning the lingering sweat from his skin. It would almost have been nice, if he’d had a soft towel waiting just a few steps away, and there wasn’t a sick dog in his arms wriggling to be free. He squeezed it tighter, hissed a threat he didn’t mean to still it, and picked up the pace, eager to be on his way. Behind him, Fell was much slower, stepping carefully, and precariously balancing a bundle of his own. Of course someone wearing that much white would walk slowly in the mud, Lee though ruefully as his foot skidded nearly a foot from where he’d set it down and he almost toppled over. Luckily he kept a grip on the dog, squinting to try and see the house he’d spotted from between the rain spots on his glasses.

Just as he was beginning to doubt that he’d seen a house at all, and that he’d sent them out of the dubious safety of the car and into the rainstorm chasing a heat slick mirage, he saw a gable roof rising sharply from the foliage. He broke into an all out sprint, dog now actively fighting against his embrace, and slid on his heels into the driveway.

Immediately he knew his mistake. The roof and walls were speckled with moss and mold, the roof half caved in and most of the windows shattered and festooned with cobwebs and faded lace curtains. Any hopes of a sweetly laundry smelling towel or a working telephone were dashed instantly. Still, he figured, dry’s dry, and there was no point going back to the car until the rain let up and the road dried up a bit. At the very least, there chances of getting run off the land were slim.

Lee hoped the door was unlocked, and shifted the dog to his hip to check. It wasn’t. He gave the door a half-strength kick and Fell jogged damply into view.

“Oh, it’s abandoned.” He said, distraught.

“Might as well go in anyway.” Lee said, and gestured at him with the dog.

“I suppose so.” Fell looked confused at the way Lee held out the dog.

“I need you to hold on to it for a sec so I can go in through the window.” Lee explained lamely.

“Oh, of course, lemme just-“ Fell cast around for somewhere to put the bundle he held, which Lee saw now was wrapped in what looked like a weather worn raincoat. “Here, just balance it on my left arm.” Fell said, waggling his head towards a small opening in his embrace that definitely wasn’t big enough for the dog. Lee was doubtful.

“It’s wriggling something fierce.”

“Can’t imagine it’s too much, we’ll get by. Won’t we honey?”

Lee almost started before he realized Fell was addressing the dog. Wordlessly, he deposited the dog in Fell’s precarious grasp, and true to Fell’s word it immediately quieted, resting its chin on Fell’s shoulder and closing its eyes.

“Guess it likes you better,” Lee said dumbly.

“I’m good with animals,” Fell whispered, not wanting to wake the dog. “Now weren’t you gonna go through a window or something?”

No one, Lee thought as he did a quick loop around the house to find the window he was least likely to get impaled on, is that good with animals. At least not without help.

Inside the house wasn’t much better than outside, though it was at least drier. The furniture was dusty and cobwebbed, lace edging gone yellow and powdery. The kitchen, where Lee had clambered his way into a sink full of copper pots long ago gone to rust, was spotted with pools of broken porcelain where cupboards had given out. Lee tapped over them nimbly, mindful of his leather shoes, and found the front door.

The lock had rusted into a flaky mass of reddish metal, impossible for Lee to get open from the inside, but he tugged on the door anyway and the waterlogged wood split with a splintery sigh and there stood Fell, framed in the furred green doorway, with a look of surprise that quickly devolved into almost childlike giggling.

“Didn’t realize you were such a strongman, Lee.” He purred, and stepped daintily past where Lee still held what was left of the doorknob, and into the living room. “Well this isn’t too bad!” he said cheerfully, and busied himself making a disembowelled easy chair into a dog bed. His hair was catching the weak light from the window and framing his round face in a blurry pale light. Lee at last thought to wipe the streaks of rain off his glasses, which made the blurriness go away- but the halo remained.

“Where abouts do you think we are?” Fell asked, not looking up. “Do you think we crossed state lines?” Lee made a small show out of peering through a grimy window, so filthy he could make out nothing but a vague sense of green, quivering beneath a roiling dark sky.

“Probably at the edge of Yoknapatawpha County,” he said seriously. Fell gave a startled giggle that descended suddenly into a full throated laugh. Lee gave a quick glance to see Fell’s eyebrows raised in surprise, cheeks flushed with laughter, and a thrill rushed through his fingertips.

“Guess we’re lucky this isn’t a barn, then,” he said, shaking his head. “And that wet wood isn’t flammable.” He chuckled again, then went back to adjusting the towel around the dog’s splayed limbs.

“We probably did cross into Mississippi though,” Lee said. “Or we’re right on the border.” The rain was beginning to leave streaks of transparency on the window glass, showing gasps of a darkening sky.

“And it looks like it’s getting dark soon.”

Fell sighed, and Lee turned to see him staring at the dog. It had calmed, seemed to be sleeping- or at least trying to. But even as it slept, Lee could see shallow, gasping breaths on its bony side.

“Do you think she’ll make it?” Fell asked quietly.

“I-” Lee didn’t want to let Fell down. And, he figured, either way they weren’t going anywhere tonight. “It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do for a body.”

Fell tutted in a way that put Lee in mind of a disappointed grandmother. One hand nervously tapping his cheekbone, he looked in consternation at the sleeping dog, then at last gave a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, and turned to Lee.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Uh-”

“I’ll go whip something up.”

Lee was wondering what exactly Fell thought he would be able to find in the destroyed kitchen, but instead Fell alighted on the raincoat wrapped package he’d brought from the car, revealing a few cans, mushy fruit wrapped in paper bags, and a few little tin cups the contents of which remained a mystery to Lee. He smiled at Fell’s forethought, and found himself a spot on the couch that wasn’t too mildewy. It seemed that for all of Fell’s worry about the dog, he was more than ready to settle in for a comfortable. What- he wondered- what else might be machinating behind those sleepy eyes?

Without truly planning to, Lee found his guitar in his hand, fingers already stretching across the strings. He strummed a few notes, looking at the tilt of Fell’s head- imperceptible if you weren’t looking, but Lee was good at spotting that sort of thing- leaning in to catch the music. Lee smiled, played a playful rhythm in time to the raindrops on the window, letting that familiar heat of music rise up through his fingers, flushing his cheeks. He hummed a few bars, fingers brushing the strings soundlessly, feeling the air for the right song.

The song, the song, he always knew the right song- even if he couldn’t say the name his fingers already knew it by heart, and it always brought the crowd to their feet, stamping and clapping in time- or as close to time as a crowd of drunks could get. As a rule, Lee only played dives.

Watching Fell rattle about trying to get the gas stove to work, Lee had a thought that made him grin, and before he had to think he was playing a simple tinny rhythm, watching Fell carefully from behind his glasses. He’d paused over the can, head cocked and eyebrows knitted, the corner of his mouth already starting to quirk ever so slightly upwards. Lee mumbled the first line- not bothering to enunciate, just a melodic slur.

Billy Ray was a preacher’s son-

And before he reached the second line, Fell had abandoned his cooking completely to look at Lee with a gaze that was supposed to be disapproving but wasn’t hiding his delight.

“I suppose you think you’re very clever.” He said, hands on his hips and shoulders giving a self-satisfied little shimmy.

“I know I’m clever Mr. Fell.” Lee said. He though Fell might have blushed, but it might have just been the circle of flickering yellow from the gas stove.

And when his daddy would visit he’d come along.

Fell laughed and turned back to the cooking, shaking his head. Lee dropped the singing, still glowing deep inside, and ran through the chords a few more times before he found the song he’d been looking for. It was something slow but not melancholy. A lullaby for the dog sleeping silently on the chair, something that wouldn’t break down the old house but would breathe a quiet warmth into the damp wood. The notes mingled with the smell of whatever Fell had on the stove, a soft lived in feeling that eased both Fell and Lee quietly into the soft night, settling down for dinner a little closer than they would have normally, laughing easy and trading jokes and stories without a thought to the storm raging with both fists, just waiting for a stray wind to push it a few miles closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you know! A fairly short chapter that's mostly sweet fluff and set-up. You know what that means for next time!


	3. The Guitar

After they’d eaten, Fell paused in the doorway of the kitchen to watch Lee play. His fingers were long, almost eerie in their vampiric grace, but they plucked at the strings tenderly- as if Lee was barely aware that his hands moved at all, and was simply running his fingertips along some long denied object of pleasure. He was caught up in the music he played, so adrift in some internal current Fell could only hope to sight him from the shore. His glasses were slipping down the bridge of his long elegant nose, and though it was growing dark, Fell thought he could almost see a flash of something orange within them, though that might have been a trick of the light. Fell caught his eyes drifting lower, watching Lee’s lips move in time to the song he played- whether singing along or whispering some archaic incantation of his own Fell didn’t know, and he tore himself away to continue chasing an idea he’d had.

He felt good about this drawer, a warm feeling in his stomach that rarely let him down, and sure enough he yanked open a termite riddled cabinet to find a supply of long forgotten, rather dribbled paraffin candles. Exactly what he’d been hoping for. Fell’s gut instincts were, most of the time, infallible.

There were a few matches in his pocket that weren’t too damp, and he lit two candles, tucked the other three under his arm, and went back to where Lee still played.

“Let there be light!” he announced in the doorway, and Lee shook his head, bemused.

“Real savior, huh? Where’d you even find those?”

“They were tucked away in the kitchen,” Fell explained, balancing one in the narrow tin cup on the coffee table. It leaned precariously, dripping wax onto an already ruined pin top, but still lit up the room in a quavering orange, throwing long shadows up onto the walls. Too dim to read by, but enough that they wouldn’t break an ankle on a missing floorboard. Fell waited to see if Lee would take off his glasses, but he just kept on playing, dark lenses reflecting the candlelight.

“You're pretty good with that guitar.” Fell said finally.

“I’d hope so,” Lee smiled.

“Where’d you learn?”

Lee’s smile dropped, eyebrows coming together, and immediately a churning discomfort roiled between them. Fell could feel his heartbeat quicken a step. Lee’s lip twitched almost imperceptibly, and, as smoothly as if they’d been waiting all their lives to do so, his hands played a few deep licks of a Delta Blues melody. It sounded familiar, but before Fell could place it, Lee straightened his fingers violently, slamming his open palm to the guitar face and stopping the lingering vibrations of the strings. All was silent, save the roar of the rain lashing the trees outside and the wheezing breaths of the dog.

And as abruptly as he’d turned sour, Lee smiled easily and began a jaunty bluegrass tune.

“Just something I picked up along the way,” he said, as easy as if Fell had inquired after an intriguing stain on his coat. “Good for a few tips here and there.”

“Or a lay if you’re lucky,” Fell said with a wink, and Lee’s playing faltered again, though this time it was with a startled laugh- more of a giggle, really, and started back up in a frenetic backporch reel that would have set Fell dancing if he wasn’t so entranced by the way Lee’s heel tapped along in rhythm. He bit his lip, not sure what had come over him to be so daring, and turned away.

“You never told me where you’re coming from.” Fell said quietly. In the corner the dog slumbered peacefully, the rise and fall of her chest just visible from where Fell sat. She seemed better- less frantic at least- but Fell hoped he’d be able to get her to drink a little water before he went to sleep.

“I’ve been on a nationwide tour,” Lee grinned. “Mostly of biker bars and stranger’s couches.”

“You’re good enough to go pro. Hell, you could probably be a real star.”

Lee shook his head, smile waning once more.

“Nah, fame would go right to my head- I’d spend all my money on booze and drink myself to death.” His hands stilled, and he put his guitar aside, placing it down reverently. “I stay small time as a matter of principle.”

He rose smoothly, and swept the hair from his forehead. Fell was struck yet again by the length of his limbs, long and black-clad and spiderish- a child’s crayon drawing of a man, not something that should exist solid and physical. Perhaps it was just an effect of that tight jacket, but he seemed to bend a bit wrong at the joints, as if he would collapse into matchstick splinters if pushed at just the right angle. When he shrugged off his jacket, Fell wondered, what was revealed?

“I’m gonna head upstairs and see if there’s anything worth salvaging in the bedroom.” Lee said, picking up the candle and holding it below his chin, casting his sharp nose and hollow cheeks into hellish shadow. “Probably all moldy but a quilt or some such would sure be nice to bed down in.”

“Yeah sure,” Fell replied, not really absorbing, and Lee smiled, candlelight gleaming off his incisors. “Holler if the bedroom’s any good, and I might just come join you.”

Lee’s smile widened, and Fell flushed. It wasn't in his nature to be this forward but he figured with the rambling type you had to take your chances when they came. If his gut was right, well, this night might just be a bit interesting yet.

“Yeah, I’ll- I’ll holler,” and before Fell could make a good guess on what his expression behind the glasses was, Lee was hurrying up the rickety stirs, chuckling a little.

“Holler…” Fell heard him whisper to himself just before he disappeared from Fell’s sight.

Fell, cross-legged on the floor and feeling almost dazed with hopefulness, stared into the candle-flame on the table. He could hear the tap of Lee’s heels upstairs, and a screech that might have been bedsprings. Even though no-one was there to see- save for the sick dog- Fell covered his face with his hands to hide the smile making its way across his face. Stupid schoolboy excitement, but well, something in Lee brought it out of him.

He reminded himself that Lee, and whatever he was busying himself with upstairs was not the most important thing he had to deal with right then, and went to check on the dog.

She stirred at his approach, and thumped her tail weakly when she saw it was him. Her left front leg was definitely broken, but now that she had room to stretch out he was relieved to see that it looked like her only other injury was a gash on her flank, that was already starting to scab over.

“You’re looking a little better there, girl,” he cooed, running a thumb lightly across her muzzle, checking if her nose was dry. With relief, his finger came away with a bit of extra snot and spit, from where she’d tried to lick his hand. “A lot better, really. I thought you might have been a lost cause there for a moment.” Might just get this creature some help yet- storm be damned. “I’m getting real fond of you, maybe if you get all better you could come along with me- be a real rambling dog.”

She sniffed, and he gave her a gentle kiss on the ear and rose once more. All seemed quiet upstairs, and Fell considered heading up- hollering or no. Thunder boomed outside, overpowering the sound of the thrashing rain, and he shivered. A perfect night to pull someone close to you, feel the warmth of a stranger’s chest, cupping his palms against the warmth behind Lee’s folded knees. He could imagine long limbs wrapping around him, fingers on his shoulders, and the mere thought was flustering him.

He listened intently, searching the silence between raindrops for any sound from upstairs, the tap of Lee’s boots or a rusted bedspring. There was nothing, just the storm outside. He fiddled with the top button on his shirt. To sneak up behind Lee, wrap his arms around his waist and find the pleasant body heat spot where his neck met his shoulders, or to wait here with his knees tucked just so for Lee to come and find him, arms open and willing? Decisions, decisions.

Well, he finally decided, he didn’t know what it looked like upstairs. Lee was probably right in guessing that it was a mess of mold and moss up there. Not that it was much better downstairs, with the couch liable to split in half at any provocation and the rain leaking in through cracks in the window sealant. 

But like his mother used to say- ‘the devil you know beats the devil you don’t’. Though he was fairly certain this was not the situation she had been imagining her son in when she said it. Couch it was.

He tried unsuccessfully to smooth some of the wrinkles out of his shirt- a pointless task if ever there was one, and set a critical eye on the couch. There was nothing to be done about how it listed to the left, or that old grey spotted fabric, unless Lee did manage to find a clean quilt. He moved the unlit candles he’d set down, tossed aside his oilskin, then paused at the last thing left in the way.

Lee’s guitar.

He felt a strange reverence, as if moving it would be some great desecration. To dare move it- risk scratching the shining wood on a loose nail or knock a string out of tune, seemed akin to pissing on a church floor. It seemed almost to glow in the candlelit, a shifting miasma of orange and yellow trembling across its surface, the way burning coals glowed from beneath a dusting of white ash. Fell had some strange apprehension that if he should touch it the wood would crack beneath his finger, pouring out magma, the entire thing folding in on itself in a mass of sulfur and heat and burning.

He blinked, and it was just a guitar once again. A well made guitar, curved in all the ways its owner wasn’t, the red varnish shining. Just a guitar. With a dismissive waggle of his fingers, shaking anxieties out of his wrists, he picked it up to move it to the other chair.

The moment his palms touched the wood, he remembered another piece of his mother’s advice, one that he was usually so good at following. Trust your gut. This wasn’t an ordinary guitar.

Instead of cool wood, the sides of this guitar were warm- warm as a body beneath a blanket. They seemed almost to pulsate, as if somehow there were veins beneath the wood, rushing and crashing against each other just below the surface. Fell pressed his hands flush to the wood, felt an unfamiliar prickle of something running up his arms. For a moment it was almost pleasant, then with a lurch his stomach dropped as a stab of cold dread ran through him- some great lance from heaven run through his heart, and he dropped the guitar back where he had found it and staggered backwards.

Lee was standing at the bottom of the stairs, a candle in one hand and a ratty quilt thrown over the other arm. His face was utterly unreadable.

Fell wanted to grab him by the collar, demand to know what the hell was going on- what manner of beast was living in his guitar. Instead he swallowed dryly, ran a hand through his hair, and tried to look calm.

“I’m sorry for touching your guitar,” he said, and meant it.

“I have more to be sorry for than you,” Lee said, and picked up the instrument the way a mother seizes upon a misbehaving toddler, tossing it roughly back in its case and kicking it skidding under the couch. “Don’t worry about it.”

“What-” Fell’s desperation for answers overcame his embarrassment for a moment. “What was-”

Instead of answering, Lee lifted his glasses, rubbing his eyes trying to find a response. His eyes were brown, but when the light hit just right they shone in dull orange discs, like a cat’s. Not the eyes any normal man should have. And the glasses were back in place, composition restored before Fell could grasp on the understanding that was waiting just outside of his mind.

“I-” Lee sighed. “A while back, when I was younger and stupider and didn’t know what I was doing, I- I made a deal-”

All of a sudden things made sense. The silhouette of leaves against the full moon. A lonely crossroads, dirt paths. The yellow eyes of snakes in the bushes and clean leather shoes crunching on gravel, throwing up sparks. The smell of sulphur, heat. Delta blues and whispers and waiting waiting waiting for the end you know is already written.

And that nagging empty inside of you. Something stolen, like a knocked out tooth or a missing guitar string, or a finger ending at the knuckle.

“You sold your soul.” Fell whispered, hoping he was wrong.

But instead of laughing- waving a hand through Fell’s small-town superstitions- ‘Mr. Fell, don’t tell me you believe in the devil’- annoyingly erudite and commanding, still chuckling as his hands found either side of Fell’s face, tugging at his hair and sliding beneath his collar, Lee just nodded, silent.

It was true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... Dusty Springfield to Robert Johnson is a bit of a jump but I think we'll handle it well. More Fell, he doesn't know what hit him. Don't worry dear, we should get to your... adult activities in a few chapters, if you're lucky.


End file.
